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SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids
SPACE WEATHER
Current conditions
Solar wind
speed: 321.3 km/sec
density: 0.5 protons/cm3
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2247 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: A0
2245 UT Dec28
24-hr: A0
0640 UT Dec28
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2245 UT
Daily Sun: 28 Dec 08
The sun is blank--no sunspots. Credit: SOHO/MDI
Sunspot number: 0
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 27 Dec. 2008
Far side of the Sun:
This holographic image reveals a possible northern hemisphere sunspot on the far side of the sun. Image credit: SOHO/MDI
Planetary K-index
Now: Kp= 0 quiet
24-hr max: Kp= 1
quiet
explanation | more data
Current Auroral Oval:
Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica
Credit: NOAA/POES
What is the auroral oval?
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 2.4 nT
Bz: 1.9 nT south
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 2247 UT
Coronal Holes:
A solar wind stream flowing from the indicated coronal hole should arrive on Dec. 30th or 31st. Credit: SOHO Extreme UV Telescope
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2008 Dec 28 2201 UTC
FLARE
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
CLASS M
01 %
01 %
CLASS X
01 %
01 %
Geomagnetic Storms:
Probabilities for significant disturbances in Earth's magnetic field are given for three activity levels: active, minor storm, severe storm
Updated at: 2008 Dec 28 2201 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
01 %
01 %
MINOR
01 %
01 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
01 %
01 %
MINOR
01 %
01 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
What's up in Space
December 28, 2008

UNIQUE CHRISTMAS GIFT: For less than the cost of a night at the movies, you can give someone the heavens for Christmas. Now available: gift subscriptions to Spaceweather PHONE.

 

CALIFORNIA FIREBALL: A remarkable fireball blazed across Califonia on Dec. 27th around 1:50 am PST. Its brilliant blue-green light caught the attention of onlookers (some inside their homes) all the way from San Francisco Bay in the north to the Los Angeles metropolitan area in the south--a range of more than 340 miles. According to one account, the object exploded with a thunderous boom, producing a spray of golden-colored fragments. Readers, if you witnessed or photographed this fireball, please submit a report.

SHADOWS OF VENUS: The legend is true. Venus is bright enough to cast shadows. The silhouette on this white screen is framed by the light of the Goddess of Love:


Play the movie: 3 MB Quicktime

French photographer Laurent Laveder took the picture and here he explains how it was done: "On Christmas evening, I went to the beach to capture the inconspicuous shadows cast by Venus. I positioned my camera (a Canon 40D) between Venus and the screen and then I made several 30 second exposures at 1600 ISO with a Sigma 30mm lens open at 1.4. The camera's shadow showed up quite nicely."

Stitching together consecutive exposures, Laveder created a must-see movie. It shows the shadow moving up as Venus descends into the waves behind the camera.

Readers, now is the time to catch your own Venus shadow. The Moon is new; so the only light in dark places after sunset belongs to Venus herself. Give it a try.

NACREOUS CLOUDS: The nacreous cloud show continues over Scandinavia. "The view tonight was among the most beautiful I've ever seen!" says veteran sky photographer P-M Hedén of Tänndalen, Sweden. "The cloud formations and colors were absolutely lovely." He snapped these sunset photos using a Canon 450D:


Nacreous or "mother of pearl" clouds are made of microscopic ice crystals floating in the stratosphere 9 to 16 miles high. These clouds gather when the temperature in the polar stratosphere drops below -85 C. Because of that numbing threshold, they tend to appear only during winter over cold places such as Scandinavia, Alaska and Iceland.

Nacreous clouds are supposed to be rare, yet sky watchers in Scandinavia has spotted them frequently during the past two weeks. Could this be a "nacreous storm"? A similar, mysterious abundance of nacreous clouds occurred in January 2008; it could be happening again. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for mother of pearl during the twilight hours after sunset or before sunrise.

Dec. 2008 Nacreous Cloud Gallery
[January 2008 Gallery] [Nacreous tutorial]

       
Near-Earth Asteroids
Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs) are space rocks larger than approximately 100m that can come closer to Earth than 0.05 AU. None of the known PHAs is on a collision course with our planet, although astronomers are finding new ones all the time.
On December 28, 2008 there were 1011 potentially hazardous asteroids.
Dec. 2008 Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Mag.
Size
2008 WY94
Dec. 5
3.2 LD
19
35 m
2008 WG14
Dec. 5
4.8 LD
17
49 m
2008 XK
Dec. 6
1.7 LD
17
15 m
2008 XC1
Dec. 12
4.3 LD
16
102 m
2008 XB2
Dec. 13
5.8 LD
18
47 m
2006 VB14
Dec. 14
36 LD
15
795 m
2008 EV5
Dec. 23
8.4 LD
13
435 m
2008 YQ2
Dec. 24
8.6 LD
18
49 m
Notes: LD means "Lunar Distance." 1 LD = 384,401 km, the distance between Earth and the Moon. 1 LD also equals 0.00256 AU. MAG is the visual magnitude of the asteroid on the date of closest approach.
Essential Links
NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center
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Atmospheric Optics
  The first place to look for information about sundogs, pillars, rainbows and related phenomena.
Solar and Heliospheric Observatory
  Realtime and archival images of the Sun from SOHO.
STEREO
  3D views of the sun from NASA's Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory
Daily Sunspot Summaries
  from the NOAA Space Environment Center
Current Solar Images
  from the National Solar Data Analysis Center
Science Central
  a one-stop hub for all things scientific
  more links...
   
©2008, SpaceWeather.com -- This site is penned daily by Dr. Tony Phillips.
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